Mike Milbury is savvy enough to realize his general manager days could be numbered once Charles Wang, as expected, buys the Islanders this week.

But putting aside his potential demise, the usually glib Milbury said yesterday that the sale is imperative for the future of the deteriorated franchise.

“For the sake of the franchise, for the sake of the players and for the sake of the [general] manager, whoever it is, it’s time to stop this bleeding,” Milbury said yesterday after the Islanders finished their season with a strong 3-2 victory against the playoff-bound Panthers before 9,316 at the Coliseum.

“It’s time that [the current owners] make a deal for the benefit of the organization. It’s time to have a new approach for this team. It’s time.”

Having been forced by current owners Ed and Howard Milstein and Steven Gluckstern to cut the team’s payroll from last season by almost 40 percent, to $16.5 million, Milbury has been severely limited in his job to improve the club. As a result, the Islanders (24-49-9-1), who had a league-low average player age of 24, finished with the 26th-lowest point total in the league and missed the playoffs for the sixth consecutive season.

So with Wang, the CEO of Computer Associates and a Long Island billionaire, preparing to finalize a deal to purchase the club for close to $180 million, Milbury called it “good news for our future.”

That is, of course, if Wang agrees to spend money. After buying the club for $195 million in 1998, the Milsteins and Gluckstern claimed that under terms of the team’s lease with the Coliseum, and with the lack of fans showing up at the games, they were losing between $10-20 million a year. As a result, they reduced payroll to minimize their losses.

But with Wang expected to cut a favorable deal with Coliseum manager SMG to develop a new Coliseum and the surrounding 70 acres, it’s likely that the new owner would not hesitate to inflate the payroll.

“It would be an unfortunate circumstance if this doesn’t go ahead,” said Milbury, who has three years left on his five-year $3.75 million contract.

First-year coach Butch Goring’s Isles finished with a better-than-expected 24 wins and 58 points, both of which equaled last season’s totals.

“We wanted to give the fans of Long Island hope and we wanted to give the players hope,” Milbury said. “The building blocks are largely in place. It’s been hard work to get to this point. A lot of pain. I think we made the best of a difficult situation.”

Two players emerged as budding stars: right wingers Mariusz Czerkawski and Brad Isbister. By scoring a hat trick yesterday, Czerkawski finished with a team-leading and career-high 35 goals and 35 assists. Isbister, who missed 18 games with an ankle sprain, had an assist yesterday and concluded with 22 goals and 20 assists, both career-highs.